Purple
by eirabach
Summary: The Doctor and Rose discuss her choice of reading material. 10/Rose. Alt!Verse Post-'Journey's End'.


**A/N: Another silly thing I wrote in an attempt to kill the dreaded writers block using the prompt 'Purple' from the livejournal 100prompts challenge. It's worth bearing in mind that I wrote this with the idea that TimeLord!Doctor did give Human!Doctor and Rose a chunk of TARDIS before leaving them to snog. This would have been an outtake from the epic fic, but writers block ate it.**

**Credit for inspiration is also owed to the online Romance Novel title generator.  
**

**Disclaimer: It's all the BBC's. If I owned it the chunk of TARDIS would have made it into the final cut.  
**

"Really, Rose, I'd expected better from you. How could you do it? After everything?"

Rose raised one eyebrow, wondering how, in the time it had taken her to get to the bathroom and back, the Doctor's mood had gone from gobby but cheerful to seriously perturbed. She mentally ticked off all the TARDIS's systems that she couldn't possibly have destroyed on her trip to the loo, reassuring herself that with the TARDIS still only being about the size of a three bedroom flat using the bathroom was still a long way from being a dangerous or particularly exciting experience.

"What have I done?" she asked with the slightly world-weary sigh of someone who expected to be utterly nonplussed by the answer.

"It's not what you've done," he moaned, in a voice bordering on seriously hurt, "It's what you're doing."

For a moment Rose's heart stood still and bilious terror rose in her throat, because she suddenly knew what he'd found – what he'd found out – and she couldn't tell him. Not now, not like this. She wasn't ready. Her mouth was already open for the false apologies that were working their way out, when he thrust a book out in front of him, held between thumb and forefinger like something unclean.

She clocked the cover and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"That? That's what you're so upset about?"

"Yes!" cried the Doctor, flapping the slim paperback as if it were stuck to his fingers, "This thing, Rose Tyler, is proof of an undeniable fact. A fact so horrific, so terrible, it's just…" he shuddered dramatically. "You're turning into your mother."

Rose sniggered.

"_The Venusian Tycoon's Unctuous Duchess_? Don't you think that might be a bit out there for my mother's tastes?"

He continued to look at her like she'd grown a second head – not unlike the Venusian tycoon himself if she remembered correctly – so she swallowed her laughter, bit her lip, and tried to match his solemn look.

"Sorry. Yes. Romance novels. You don't like them then?"

"Like them?" Rose bit her lip harder at his splutter of indignation, "They're…"

"Filthy?" she asked, unable to resist a giggle as his face flushed red, "Lewd? Positively tittilating?"

"No!" he cried, his face bright enough to match his trainers, "They're… they're… wrong! Absolutely wrong! I mean nobody actually _throbs_ – well except…but anyway that's hardly relevant and really not at all sexual – and honestly Rose; _lady garden_?"

Rose snorted with laughter, and stepped forward to take the book from his hand and drop it on the floor behind her, her other hand sneaking up to tug on his tie.

"Yeah, okay, I give you that. Lady garden is a bit… much."

She ran her hand through his hair where is stuck up over his ear, "But really, it's pretty good fun," she grinned and licked her lips, "full of ideas."

The Doctor looked at her like she'd gone mad.

"But it's ridiculous! There's no such thing as Venusians! And even if there were, which there aren't because I'd know, they would not have such things as Duchesses and _certainly _not unctuous ones… how is that sexy anyway? How is any definition of that word sexually appealing even to none existent Venusians? And while I'm on the subject…"

"Alright, alright!" laughed Rose, "How about I think of a better title?"

The Doctor stopped mumbling irritably and finally seemed to pay attention to the way Rose had draped herself on him.

"Oh?" he managed.

"Yeah," said Rose, trying not to pay attention to the blush rising up her own face as he looked at her, "like… erm… _The Mostly Gallifreyan Time Travelling Space Man's Tasty Companion_."

The Doctor swallowed, and narrowed his eyes.

"Close, but again, still not quite accurate."

"No?" Rose asked, heart beating a little louder in her ears and breath coming slightly

Quicker as he leant in towards her.

"No," agreed the Doctor, smiling slightly, his lips barely an inch from hers, "I much prefer _The Human TimeLord Meta Crisis'd Time Travelling Space Man's Delicious Companion. _Accuracy is key, Rose. I will have no accusations of false advertising."

"Delicious?"

"Oh yes."

Rose didn't argue.


End file.
